Do I need to be technical?

Not at all. You never need to understand how it works, only that it does. We handle everything and explain it in plain language.

How long does the setup take?

Foundation goes live in one to two weeks. Each Motion automation takes two to three weeks. We start with a short call to scope it honestly before anything is built.

Will I own the site when it’s done?

Yes. Everything is in your name and your accounts: code, domain, hosting account, Google Analytics, the lead-tracking sheet. If you decide to walk away tomorrow, you take everything with you. No vendor lock-in, no hostage data.

Why not just build it myself on Squarespace?

Honestly? If you only need a one-page portfolio, go ahead. Squarespace is great. We come in when the site has to do real work: capture leads, route them somewhere useful, integrate with the tools you already use, look like nobody else’s. Foundation pays for itself the first time the site books a job while you’re at the studio.

What if something breaks?

Well-built sites and automations rarely break. But when they do, we honour our work. We ship the fix and learn from it. For ongoing peace of mind, ask us about an ongoing support arrangement after launch.

What if I already have a site?

Tell us about it. Sometimes Motion can plug straight into your current setup. Sometimes a small foundation check is worth the time first to clean up tracking, forms, or hosting. We’ll be honest about which one you need.

Why nobody finds your portfolio on Google

Your portfolio is beautiful. You finished it last winter. You typed your name into Google last week and you weren't on page one. You weren't on page three either.

There's nothing magical happening here. One of six things is wrong. Below is how to figure out which.

Reason one: Your titles are all the same (or missing)

Every page on your site should have a distinct title tag and a distinct meta description. If they all say Anna Kim or Home, Google has nothing to differentiate them by.

Check: view the source of any page in your browser. Find <title>. If the title is generic or repeated across pages, that's the issue.

Fix: rewrite each page title to describe what's on that page, plus your name, plus the location. Anna Kim ceramicist, Brunswick studio beats Home.

Reason two: Google hasn't crawled your site yet

If your site was launched in the last few weeks, or if it's never been submitted to Google Search Console, Google might simply not have indexed it.

Check: type site:yourdomain.com into Google. If nothing comes up, you're not indexed.

Fix: create a free Google Search Console account, verify ownership of your site, submit your sitemap. Within a week, Google should start indexing your pages.

Reason three: You're optimised for the wrong terms

You wrote ceramicist creating sculptural vessels in a meditative practice. Beautiful. Nobody types that into Google.

What people actually type:

Melbourne ceramicist
handmade ceramics Melbourne
ceramic vase artist Australia
contemporary potter Brunswick

You can keep the poetic phrasing for the gallery. But somewhere on the page, you need the words a real searcher would use.

Check: go to Google, start typing ceramicist (or whatever you make), see what Google autocompletes. Those are the actual searches. None of them include the word meditative.

Fix: add the practical search terms to your home page intro, your alt text, and your page titles, in natural sentences.

Reason four: No other sites link to you

Imagine Google as a town. Your site is a brand new house. Nobody knows it exists until someone tells them. Other sites linking to you are how Google hears.

Check: search link:yourdomain.com (or use a free tool like Ubersuggest). Count the unique sites pointing at you. If it's fewer than five, that's a problem.

Fix: where are you mentioned online? Email the editor of every piece that mentions you and politely ask for a link to your site if it's missing. Add yourself to relevant local directories. Get yourself into one group show or one editorial piece a year.

Reason five: Your site is too slow

If your home page takes 6 seconds to load on a phone, Google notices. So does the visitor, who already left.

Check: run your URL through PageSpeed Insights. If the mobile LCP is over 2.5 seconds, you have a speed problem.

Fix: compress images, serve modern formats (WebP, AVIF), remove autoplay video on the home page, lazy-load anything below the fold. Most artist sites lose 80% of their speed to oversized images.

Reason six: You're invisible on Google Maps

If you have a Melbourne studio and you want to be found by local clients, the Google Business Profile (the map listing) matters more than your website's SEO. We unpack it in the Google Business Profile piece.

Check: type ceramicist Brunswick into Google. Do you appear in the map pack at the top? If not, you don't have a profile set up.

Fix: create one (free). It's a 20-minute job we walk through in the GBP piece.

The 10-minute diagnostic

Run these five checks, in order:

site:yourdomain.com in Google. Are you indexed at all?
View source on your home page. Is the <title> specific and clear?
Type the keywords a buyer would use. Are you anywhere on the first three pages?
Run PageSpeed Insights. Is mobile LCP under 2.5s?
Type your speciality plus your suburb. Are you in the map pack?

Whichever one fails, that's where you start.

If you want us to run this diagnostic for you and ship the fixes, that's what Motion is for.